Badr al-Din Lu'lu'

Badr al-Din Lu'lu' (1200-1259) was the ruler of Mosul (from 1233 to 1259) after the collapse of the Zengids and during the time of the Mongol Empire's conquest of the Levant.

Biography
Badr al-Din Lu'lu was an ethnically Armenian convert to Islam, but he was culturally a Levantine and had the resemblance of an Arab. He served as an administrator under Nur ad-Din Arslan Shah I, the Zengid emir of Mosul, and he was appointed to the post of "atabeg" (commander-in-chief). From 1211 to 1233, he served as regent for Nasir al-Din Mahmud, the last of the Zengids. Badr al-Din became the independent ruler of Mosul on Mahmud's death, the first independent mamluk ruler in history. He switched between recognizing Ayyubid, Seljuk, and Mongol rulers in order to preserve his rule, and he surrendered to the Mongols in order to spare his city from destruction. He died in 1259.